Wednesday June 9, 2021

June 16, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 9, 2021

Muslim family in Canada killed in ‘premeditated’ truck attack

The attack took place in the city of London, Ontario province. A boy aged nine, the family’s only survivor, is in hospital with serious injuries.

A 20-year-old Canadian man has been charged with four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.

The attack was the worst against Canadian Muslims since six people were killed in a Quebec City mosque in 2017.

“It is believed that these victims were targeted because they were Muslim,” Det Supt Paul Waight told a news conference on Monday.

Police are weighing possible terrorism charges, he said, adding that it is believed to be a hate crime.

Two women – aged 74 and 44 – a 46-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl were all killed. They have not been named, in accordance with the wishes of the family. A nine-year-old boy was in hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, said police.

Police named the alleged attacker as Nathanial Veltman, 20, of London, Ontario. He was arrested without incident at a shopping centre about 6km (4.8 miles) from the crime scene.

It is not yet known if the suspect has ties to any hate groups, said Det Supt Waight.

“There is no known previous connection between the suspect and the victims,” Det Supt Waight said, adding that the suspect was wearing a vest that appeared to be “like body armour”.

Police said Mr Veltman had no previous convictions.

Officials added that there was good weather and high visibility conditions when the black truck was seen mounting the kerb on Hyde Park Road at around 20:40 local time on Sunday.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford was among those who paid tribute to the victims, tweeting: “Hate and Islamophobia have NO place in Ontario.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that he was “horrified” by the news.

“To the loved ones of those who were terrorised by yesterday’s act of hatred, we are here for you,” he wrote.

“This was an act of mass murder, perpetrated against Muslims, against Londoners, and rooted in unspeakable hatred,” said London Mayor Ed Holder.

In a statement, Mayor Holder said he was speaking “on behalf of all Londoners when I say our hearts are broken”.

“We grieve for the family, three generations of whom are now deceased.”

Nawaz Tahir, a London lawyer and representative of the Muslim community, said during the police news conference: “These were innocent human beings who were killed simply because they were Muslim.”

“We will stand strong against Islamophobia. We will stand strong against terror with faith, with love, and a quest for justice,” he continued.

“Hate will never overshadow the light of love.”

It is not the first time members of the Muslim community in Canada have come under attack.

In January 2017, a Canadian man fatally shot six worshippers at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, and seriously injured five others. The perpetrator was sentenced to life in prison.

Canada’s deadliest vehicle-ramming attack happened in 2018, when a self-described “incel” (involuntary celibate) ploughed his van into a group of pedestrians in Toronto, killing 10 people. (BBC)

Thursday June 16, 2016

June 15, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 16, 2016

Orlando Alligator Disney Death Is The Third Tragedy To Strike Florida City In Less Than A Week

The day after the massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub, Mayor Buddy Dyer, called the tragedy “the worst day in history of Orlando.” But the Pulse shooting is not the only misfortune Orlando has had to endure in the past few days.

On Tuesday night, a 2-year-old boy was dragged away by an alligator at a Walt Disney World resort in the Central Florida city. The toddler, whose body was still being searched for more than 15 hours later, is believed to be dead. The incident is the latest in a spate of tragedies that has hit Orlando in one of the darkest weeks in the city’s history, following the killing of singer Christine Grimmie Friday and the Pulse attack, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. History.

Grimmie, who finished in third-place on Season 6 of NBC’s “The Voice,” was shot to death Friday night while giving autographs after her concert at the Plaza Live theater. Police have identified 27-year old Kevin James Loibl of St. Petersburg, Florida, as the gunman. Loibl, who was armed with two handguns and a large hunting knife, shot himself after opening fire on Grimmie.

News of Grimmie’s death sparked a national discussion about gun control, a conversation that was only amplified when the news of the Pulse attack hit less than 48 hours later. The attack on the gay nightclub occurred early Sunday morning when a lone gunman, identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, started firing at club patrons with an assault rifle and took hostages before SWAT teams stormed the building and gunned him down. (Source: International Business Times)

Published in The Western Star, Cornerbrook, Newfoundland

Thursday April 9, 2015

April 8, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 9, 2015

We may tire of the Duffy circus

If nothing else, we now know that the trial of Mike Duffy will be exhaustively chronicled, in real time, with no tawdry detail left un-tweeted. At times Tuesday it seemed every journalist in Canada was engaged in the play-by-play.

But will Canadians beyond Ottawa get mad at the Senate fat cats and power mongers all over again? Or will they gaze through the headlines with a fatalistic, heard-it-allbefore shrug? With Election 2015 looming, this is the critical question. And the best answer is neither clear-cut nor satisfactory: It depends. For each of the major parties, including the Conservatives themselves, there are potential opportunities in this, the closest political Canada has seen to the O.J. Simpson trial, as well as the obvious pitfalls.

The consensus view, much asserted in the past 48 hours amid a cascade of setup coverage (Five things you need to know about the Duffy Trial; Your Duffy Trial Primer; All About Duff, no Guff!), is that the trial of Mike Duffy on 31 criminal charges, including fraud, breach of trust and bribery, could be Stephen Harper’s Waterloo. It has been likened to the Gomery inquiry into the Liberal sponsorship scandal, accounts of which rocked the Liberal party in 2004-05 and contributed to Paul Martin Jr.’s being held to a brief two years as prime minister. This trial comes at a most awkward time for Harper, with his bid for re-election already hampered by an economy gone soft, and his party suffering from the sclerosis common to all decade-old Canadian administrations. (Source: National Post)

Posted to National Newswatch.com

Friday, April 26, 2013

April 26, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, April 26, 2013

What’s the real cost of a cheap $8 shirt?

Canadian consumers grappled with the guilt and confusion tied to that question Thursday as horror played out in Bangladesh. The sheer magnitude of the factory collapse outside Dhaka is unprecedented even in that poor Asian nation, where an estimated 700 people working in its booming garment industry have died on the job in the past eight years.

Experts on discount culture say that Westerners’ craving for cheap clothes does not have to come at the expense of worker safety, and angry consumers took up that call on social media Thursday, condemning the brands whose garments were made at the collapsed factory.

Those brands include Joe Fresh, the Brampton, Ont., based company that has been celebrated by fashion insiders and regular shoppers for providing the latest trends at bargain prices.

Hundreds of people wrote on the retailer’s Facebook and Twitter pages, saying that the company’s response to the disaster amounted to too little, too late.

Joe Fresh’s parent company, Loblaw Cos. Ltd., released a statement Wednesday that said a “small number” of Joe Fresh items were made at the Bangladeshi factory.

“What constitutes ‘a small number of … items?’ Does sourcing slave labour on a small scale make you less responsible than those who do it on a large scale? Put on your humanity hat, dig into those massive Joe Fresh profits, grab your corporate shareholders and head over to help the recovery,” wrote Kelly Penman of Brampton. (Source: Globe & Mail)

Tuesday February 14, 2012

February 14, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday February 14, 2012

How Ontario’s ‘stimulus’ spending led to disaster

The fiscal mess in Ontario is now common knowledge across the country, thanks in part to a sensational report from the Conference Board of Canada demonstrating that unless the government slashes spending and/or raises taxes, health care and education will have to be decimated. The report was no surprise to people who tracked Premier Dalton McGuinty’s march into Keynesian fiscal stimulus spending.

If we can’t expect politicians to take the blame for following the Keynesian deficit-spending policies advocated by their economic advisors, shouldn’t we turn to the economic experts to get them to explain themselves? The same people who supported and advised the McGuinty Liberals — and the Obama Democrats, the Greek and Portuguese politicians, the French and Canadian governments — to run up spending to rescue the economy will spend the next decade telling governments how to get out of the mess they helped create.

Ontario’s current circumstances create a perfect opportunity to confront the economic establishment and lay blame for the fiscal disaster that is Ontario. Government spending has been soaring for years. It all looks good if growth rates stay strong. Where were the dire economic warnings through the last decade that the expansion in government activity cannot continue without hitting a wall?

A table on Ontario’s spending habits (above) captures the disconnect between the government and the people. While the personal income of the people dragged at 26% growth, government spending soared more than 60%.

On Wednesday, former TD Bank economist Don Drummond will deliver a set of tax and spending options to the McGuinty government, a road map on how the province can resolve its fiscal problems. (Source: Financial Post)